Learning Indonesian: Update 14
Apr 14We’ve made some progress in finding conversation partners…we have two now. We’re also trying to orgainse a conversation exchange with a group at a local university. As for my progress, it’s slow. It’s my fault, to be honest. I spend my day-time working on the internet with little contact from the outside world, and we only meet our friends 3 or 4 times a...
Learning Indonesian: Update 13
Mar 21We had a meeting with the director of the English university department on Monday to find conversation partners. So far we’ve received no emails so we’re very disappointed. I’m going to email the director one more time. Fingers crossed. We’re meeting with the same guy we met last week tonight. I’m going to speak Indonesian as much as possible. I really need to take...
Learning Indonesian: Update 12
Mar 17Last night we had our first Indonesian language exchange. We chatted for almost 3 hours, but mainly in English. We did practice Indonesian but for the most part I asked him question after question about the language. Rachel and I came away with a much better understanding of spoken Indonesian, as opposed to the extremely formal language we’d learnt from Assimil, Linguaphone & Teach...
Learning Indonesian: Update 11
Mar 16We have out first language exchange tonight. We visited a couple of universities and left our details with staff in the hopes of getting a response from a willing student. That same day we received an email, the only one we’ve received, from a final year engineering student. Ideally we’d like to have multiple conversation partners but for now we are happy with anything we can...
Learning Indonesian: Update 10
Mar 12Yesterday we bought 5 novels in Indonesian. 3 of them are meant for younger audiences. Rachel’s reading Through the looking glass, for example. My book, Tales Dark and Grimm, is a play on the Hansel and Gretel story, only darker and grimier. I’m finding the reading quite straightforward as long as I have the English translation at hand. The problem is, I think I know about 60% of the...
Learning Indonesian: Update 9
Mar 07I’m back, and this time we’re finally in Indonesia. I’ll be updating my language journal much more often from now on. My Indonesian, rather surprisingly, hasn’t been bad at all. 700 hours, more or less, studying the language has allowed me to get by in most tourist situations. My comprehension is much more impressive than my spoken Indonesian. I still sound like an infant when I...